When soft tissue such as a ligament or a tendon becomes detached from a bone, surgery is usually required to reattach or reconstruct the tissue. Often, a tissue graft is attached to the bone to facilitate regrowth and permanent attachment. Techniques and devices that have been developed generally involve tying the soft tissue with suture to an anchor or a hole provided in the bone tissue. Knotless suture anchors, such as the two piece Arthrex PushLock® anchor, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,329,272, have been developed to facilitate tissue fixation to bone.
It would be desirable to provide a knotless anchor construct which has a design that allows minimizing both the tissue cut-thru and the amount of bone removed, while maximizing tissue compression. A knotless tensionable fixation device with tape above the bone (to provide maximum tissue fixation and compression) and suture-only below the bone (to allow for small-size fixation devices and minimal amount of bone removed for securing such small size-fixation devices) is also needed. Also needed are improved methods for tissue fixation with a knotless fixation device with tape above the bone (preferably only tape above the bone) and suture-only below the bone.